Upside down rainbows and other unusual sights

[Barbara]

Are those individual icy crystals the photographer mentions the ones toward the top of the ice halo ?
Is that the diamond dust ?!

[Maria]

Are those individual icy crystals the photographer mentions the ones toward the top of the ice halo ?
Is that the diamond dust ?!

Yes, that does appear to be correct. I will repeat the quote from my post above. The night shot is the one from the automobile headlamps.

These luminous shapes are caused by light shining through jewel-like crystals called "diamond dust.' Lähteenmäki notes that "You can see individual ice crystals glinting in my photos--especially the night shot."

Atmospheric optics expert Les Cowley has seen halos like these before. He finds the night halos most interesting: "Artificial light halos can have strange forms compared with those made by the sun or moon. The difference is because, unlike sun rays, those from nearby lights are not parallel. The equivalents of sundogs become long streaks. There are even super sundogs. The trumpet-shaped night halo Lähteenmäki photographed was made by hexagonal column crystals floating nearby with their long axes horizontal. It is a cousin of the familiar upper tangent arc--similar, but not the same. Look out at night for a whole new world of halos!"

http://www.spaceweather.com/archive.php ... &year=2016

[Barbara]

Sorry, I didn't pay too much attention to the second paragraph.

I was going to claim that i was distracted by the fact that he was a Swedish photographer on the day of the martyrdom of
many, many monastics at the St Tryphon of Pechenga Monastery, but now I see he is Finnish. Oh well, nice try !

It turns out, by the way, that the St Tryphon of Pechenga Monastery was for a long time considered the northernmost monastery in the world, speaking of superlative locations for Orthodox edifices.

"Six years after St. Tryphon's death in 1583, the wooden monastery was raided and burnt down by the Swedes. It is said that the raid claimed the lives of 51 monks and 65 lay brothers, bringing the history of Tryphon's establishment to an end. This revenge raid was carried out by a Finnish peasant chief Pekka Antinpoika Vesainen on December 25, 1589, and was part of the Russo-Swedish War of 1590 - 1595."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pechenga_Monastery

Ah - here is my excuse. The leader of the raid causing the martyrdoms was Finnish.

By the way, this monastery has been rebuilt, the pictures in this wikipedia entry show.

[Maria]

This is a lovely photo from Finland.

AURORAS VS. LIGHT PILLARS: Last night in Muonio, Finland, Antti Pietikäinen hiked out onto the frozen surface of the River Muonio to get away from glaring city lights. "I was trying to get a better view of the auroras," he says. Turns out, he got a great view of both:

"I had a rare shot with auroras and light pillars in the same image," says Pietikäinen.

Light pillars are a common sight around northern cities in winter. Urban lights bounce off ice crystals in the air, producing tall luminous columns sometimes mistaken for auroras.

http://www.spaceweather.com/archive.php ... &year=2016

Please click the link above to see how that river crater was formed.

[Maria]

This made the news in Portugal. To me it looks like a wicked devil's hand, not the hand of God as some are saying.

The cloud was spotted by weather blogger Rogerio Pacheco. His photos soon got attention on social media. People had all kinds of speculations, comparing the unusual cloud to anything from a “Hand of God” to a burning fist, or even a comet from the video game Final Fantasy.

http://www.boredpanda.com/unusual-cloud ... BPFacebook

[Maria]

Here is another shot at a different time.

Notice what looks like a skull inside the leading fire ball.

[Matthew]

I have been looking at that photo trying to see a skull, but all I see is a hand holding a burrito! Sorry.